Irregularity
by Matsuo Asuka
Summary: The summary never properly conveys what I want you to understand. If you're really interested in reading this, I implore you to do so. Thank you all.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I want to make it clear that this fanfic is purely for fun. I don't even really ship this pairing. I hardly believe it's possible. The only real reason I'm writing it is because I think I can make a good nanshoku fanfic, even though the pairing is laughable because they hate each other; out of 347 pages of M-rated Naruto fanfiction, how many of the yaoi fics are actually well-written? It is more than irritating to find a fic that you think sounds very interesting, only to click into its contents and find that the author can't spell or correctly construct a sentence. With that, enjoy this fanfic, as I hope you always do. Thank you.

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Pairing: Gaara/Sasuke

Warnings: AU, self-mutilation/cutting, angst, yaoi (and you know what that includes, it's not necessary to list it), strong language

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**Irregularity**

_Chapter One – Play Dead_

Was there really a point in geometry? Who used it anyway? Maybe architects or something similar to that profession. The point was that a certain red-head had no interest in any profession of that sort. He was an outcast that enjoyed very few things save heavy metal and punk rock, drawing, manga, and Japanese food. His siblings thought him odd, but didn't totally shun him, unlike practically everyone at school. The only thing that seemed to prevent homicides at his hands was the lack of human contact. If no one talked to him but Kankuro and Temari, there would be no problems with the voice – it wouldn't tell him to kill and it wouldn't tell him to cut away at his own flesh. Another thing that only his brother and sister knew about.

Letting his eyes roam around the classroom and break him from his reverie, the teal orbs settled on a certain other anti-social classmate of his. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on his worksheet. He looked at his own blank one and noted that it was something about triangles and the distance formula. He anticipated that Temari would coax him into doing it later. Leaving the boring piece of paper to continue sitting on his desk, he let his gaze travel again to Sasuke. It seemed as though the black-haired boy could feel the eyes on him because he looked away from his paper and directly at Gaara. So he possessed enough sense to know when someone was staring. Gaara continued to stare at Sasuke, even as inky eyes met levelly with teal. He wasn't about to look away and blush, pretending like he hadn't been staring; he wasn't one of those simpering fools for girls that followed the boy around like dogs. He had too much supposed dignity. After a few seconds, the raven-haired boy lost the staring contest and scribbled something on his worksheet. Probably the answer to a problem. But Gaara continued to stare for some time after Sasuke had forfeited. Again, he seemed to take notice of the eyes on him and looked at Gaara again. This time he raised an eyebrow and mouthed the word 'what'. The red-haired boy slowly looked away from the black-haired boy as if to say he did not wish to discuss what was going on in his mind. Really he didn't. He had a feeling the voice was about to resurface. He raised his hand and asked solemnly, "May I use the restroom?" before receiving a curt nod in the affirmative and exiting the classroom. As he left the room, he felt onyx eyes burning into the back of his figure and he smirked. So, another person was going to take temporary interest. Then they would reject him as soon as they realized his mental instability. And speaking of mental instability…

_**Hello Gaara…do I detect emotion somewhere within you? Perhaps it is one called…angst? Bitterness? You are feeling…**_

He clutched the sides of his head and mumbled, "Shut up…" How could a word that no one even spoke trigger the voice? The damned voice. And it had been so long since he had pressed the cold steel against the soft flesh of his inner forearm. He thought he had been doing pretty well, too. Aw well. Time to bleed again.

Entering the bathroom, he locked himself inside one of the cramped stalls and took the dulling box cutter out from his back pocket. Pushing back one of his black sleeves and clicking the blade upwards of its plastic guard, he gritted his teeth and hissed in pain as he dragged the razor over his arm. He watched in detached fascination as the red liquid welled up an slid in a warm stream down the side of his arm. Pain was the only thing he wanted to feel. He rejected emotion and relationships and people. Sliding the box cutter across his arm a couple more times, black spots appeared in his vision. He knew he would be dizzy, but, most likely, he wouldn't pass out, and he was sure he wouldn't die. He wasn't losing enough blood. Sighing, he pocketed the knife again and moved out of the stall.

"So…you cut yourself, huh? Are you sadistic, crazy, or just a loser?"

Gaara hadn't heard anyone come into the bathroom and the new voice startled him. Not the mention the condescending way in which it spoke. Ignoring the question for the moment, he hissed and groaned a little as he ran his arm under icy water from the sink and wiped the blood off of his arm with a paper towel. Pushing his sleeve back down, he shuffled past Sasuke, whispering, "None of those things. I'm something you wouldn't understand."


	2. Chapter 2

**Irregularity

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_Chapter Two – Brackish

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_The red-haired boy returned to the classroom first, at which time he was informed that Sasuke had been sent to retrieve him, and he would now be receiving a detention. He simply nodded and sat down at his desk and rubbed his temples. The voice had subsided for the moment, but he had a headache. Sasuke entered the room a few minutes after he had and solemnly sat down in his own desk. He glanced briefly at Gaara, which caused Gaara to shift his eyes, and nothing else, to glance back at the black-haired boy and then away again. Soon after his trip to the bathroom and his return to the classroom, the bell rang for the end of class and Gaara picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. 

Oh, joy. P.E. Not exactly his favorite class, but endurable. All of it was endurable. Actually, there was only a single class he didn't have to force himself to tolerate: art. Of course, how many times had he been sent to the counselor's office for what he drew? Horror and macabre art – however well-executed – was not exactly accepted. He wasn't a good phys ed student and only went because he needed the credits to graduate. But it was his second year of class and he wouldn't have to take it for the rest of his high school career. Entering the gym at his own decidedly lazy pace, his heavy boots clunking noisily on the hardwood floor.

Gaara started to get an odd feeling as he neared the red painted door of the boys' locker room. What was it? Was it…as though someone was waiting for him on the other side of the steel door? Shaking off, or rather putting the feeling aside, he turned the handle and walked through. Something didn't seem quite right. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that there didn't appear to be anyone else in the locker room. Gaara was usually late to P.E. and everyone else was outside on the soccer field. No, it was that there _shouldn't _have been anyone in there, yet he knew there was. Scanning the open benches in the front part of the room, he only saw the usually disarrangement of miscellaneous clothing strewn about. No people. Was another degree going to be added to his craziness? Was he paranoid now as well? He shook his head and sighed, dropping his backpack lazily against the wall and unzipping it to retrieve a small black device. Sweet salvation: the MP3 player. He fitted the tiny ear buds into their intended places on his head and cranked the volume, letting the roaring electric riffs somehow clam him, and he closed his eyes for a few seconds.

"Are you just going to hide in the locker room for the whole period?"

His eyes snapped open, and, much to his dismay, it was his fellow antisocialite's voice which had penetrated the invincible wall of sound that was heavy metal. He glared at Sasuke before pushing the pause button on the little MP3 player so that he could control the volume of his voice as he replied. "And what the hell difference does it make to you if I stay right here for the whole rest of the day?" Gaara's voice was venomous and rough, but he was still quite calm. He stared at the black-haired boy for a few moments, who was staring back at him angrily, before jumping to his feet and storming out of the locker room without his backpack.

"Can I go to the office? I don't feel well…" The red-haired boy feigned illness for the P.E. teacher, an art that he had perfected since elementary school. The man gave him the same curt nod that most teachers gave him, and he meandered across the expanse of the gymnasium toward the exit. A few minutes after he had left the gym, Sasuke burst out of the locker room carrying a heavy, black, canvas affair that was Gaara's backpack. "Where did Gaara go?" he asked the teacher, slightly out of breath. "To the office. He said he wasn't feeling well." Sasuke frowned. He guessed that was probably a lie. "He forgot his stuff in the locker room. Can I take it to him?" Sasuke inquired, as any helpful student would. He received the common-place curt nod and sprinted out of the gym, dragging the heavy backpack behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Irregularity**

_Chapter Three – Increase Blue_

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"Yes, Temari. I'm actually sick. Could you please come pick me up from school?" Gaara was growing impatient with his sister's skepticism. She was the only one home that he could call, and here she was doubting his credibility. "Please…I hear it again…" he admitted, putting as little emphasis on 'it' as he could. The last thin he wanted was the school administration to know he was crazy.

"I see. So someone tried to interact with you. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you."

Gaara hung up the phone and sat in the wobbly wooden chair in the corner of the office. _Why did it have to be Sasuke?_ he questioned silently. A voice just as silent responded, a voice that he dreaded hearing.

_**Child, you are feeling. You can't feel. It isn't allowed. Cut out the feelings.**_

Gaara gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to cut himself right there in the office. He felt himself reaching into his pocket and gripping the slim casing on the X-acto knife. _No_ he screamed inside his head. _Just wait till Temari gets here. She'll- _His mental battle was interrupted as the source of his current instability walked through the door. Gaara's eyes widened almost in shock and his hand froze in his pocket. "What are you…" he questioned quietly, shaking his head in realization as he saw the backpack Sasuke clutched in his left hand. "You forgot your bag in the locker room…" The dark-haired boy eyed him with an air of suspicion, bordering on disgust. Slowly, Gaara's fingers uncurled from around his knife and slid out of his pocket. He stared at the tiled floor in shame and anger. He was disgusted with himself. "Thanks…" he muttered, his voice coming out in a choked whisper. "Yeah, you're welcome." Sasuke started for the for the door, then stopped and turned back to look at Gaara. The red-haired boy looked up upon not hearing the door and feeling the gaze – there it was again, that feeling as black locked onto teal – and he was surprised to see that Sasuke almost looked…pained? "Look…Gaara, you should talk to someone about that." He nodded toward Gaara's arms, which were laying slack across his lap. The troubled teen's eyes widened again in shock and he gaped a little. Was he serious? He looked genuinely concerned. Before he could question the reason, Sasuke was out the door and his own sister was standing in front of him. "Hey, you ready to go?" Without much hassle, Temari signed Gaara out of school and he breathed a sigh of relief as they left the office.

"So…someone actually talked to you, huh?" the blonde began, this being the ice-breaker of a morbid questionnaire that her little brother had not had to endure for quite some time.

"Yeah…" _Actually, it started before he even literally spoke._

"What was the kid's name?"

"Sasuke…Uchiha."

"An Uchiha, eh? You'd be considered lucky, if this wasn't causing _that_ to flair up again…" Temari sighed. "I went to school with that guy's older brother. He was…definitely a trip." Itachi Uchiha had been the top antisocialite in the history of the highschool. He never spoke to anyone unless it was to a teacher, and that was only a very straightforward answer to a question pertaining to school. Girls were afraid of him – something about his eyes – and he had no friends. Though that didn't seem to bother him at all. "Anyway, how come this guy is giving you problems?"

"He…cares."

"How can you tell?"

"He won't leave me alone. And…that was even after he caught me…"

Temari slammed on the brakes, stopping in the middle of a fortunately deserted street. "Hold it, kid. Do you mean you were cutting _at school?_" Of course, Temari knew about more or less all of Gaara's problems. She was the closest thing he could get to a confidante. He sighed and looked out the window. He didn't even have to answer; Temari already knew the answer anyway. A car pulled onto the street behind them and Temari pressed the gas pedal. They would be talking more when they got home.


End file.
